


Blaze of Glory

by vanitaslaughing



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: (loqi voice) honour, Explosions, Gen, assassin's festival spoilers?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 07:19:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11962458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanitaslaughing/pseuds/vanitaslaughing
Summary: The three times Loqi Tummelt should by any means have died to spare himself from living with the shame - and the one time he deliberately charged in.





	Blaze of Glory

The first time, he considered himself on the superior side of the fight. The armour was working flawlessly, the area was full of MTs dispatched solely to help secure the point. They had lost a few as the prince and his entourage fought their way in, but sure four men on foot could never stand a change against the might of the Empire, no matter how many spells they could sling.

It just so happened that they were not four. It weren’t the prince and his friends on their own, no – and that certainly turned the tides of war.

Taking on a runaway prince barely focused on the fight because of too many things to worry about and his friends was one matter. Taking on Cor Leonis and four battle-thirsty if exhausted Lucians with spells at their disposal, however…

He still had the better technology. Machines did not fall that easily to the flimsy spells the prince flung around, he was nothing compared to the piloting test runs against but a virtual copy of his own father.

Nevertheless, Loqi Tummelt overestimated himself and underestimated the others, and when he felt the machinery around him heat up and the alarms went off all at once, all he could do in that second was saying what all field soldiers were taught to say in case of emergency.

His memory cut out after that, but when he came to he barely managed to crack open his eyes. The air was cool – night had fallen. He was also staring at the High Commander’s boots.

Ravus Nox Fleuret was speaking to some other army officials, one of them Caligo Ulldor.

“Go find them. Use whatever means you deem necessary but for the love of Eos, do not kill anyone.”

With that command, Ulldor took off and Loqi realised that his entire body stung as if someone had bathed him in the Infernian’s hellfire. Any other person would have likely started screaming, but he felt so weak that he couldn’t even more. That was when Ravus moved as well, leaning down and inspecting his face.

“Tummelt, if you are alive, blink once.” Loqi blinked, and the High Commander sighed. “Would that you had died – the blockage stormed and opened and that Lucian marshal off to who-knows-where; a valuable asset and several hundred MTs completely and utterly trashed… And the Lucian royal still at large. That is quite the shame you have amassed for your family here. Medics! Over here! There’s a survivor.”

The High Commander spoke the truth, of course. His recovery was riddled with ridicule and shame, and he was near boiling by the time he had recovered enough to face his own family. Those who had fallen to shame because of his actions and failures.

* * *

The second time, he definitely had the upper hand. Most definitely the upper hand – the entire city was watched and effectively occupied, the bait and trap was laid near flawlessly. He had taken on that job to regain his own honour, but mostly to erase the shame on his family name. Everyone else had done their best and still, _still_ they were eyed as if they had personally thrown up in Emperor Aldercapt’s lap. He was going to right this wrong, and if it was the last thing he ever did. He would save Eos a dire fate, and regain his honour in one sweeping coup-de-grace.

At least that was what Loqi Tummelt believed as he handed out the keycards and pocketed the seventh one. He had no intention whatsoever of hurting that woman who worked in this place, but she had proven to be a poor choice. Alas, her being here and without her keycards all but ensured that Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum of Lucis would sooner rather than later come after him to get the final keycard back.

It worked, as far as he was concerned. The prince was being chased across the city, the civilians were out of harm’s reach and the MTs were on their target.

When the prototype they were testing at the request of the research and development department and Chancellor Izunia failed, he felt that familiar surge of panic once more.

And again he went down in fire and flame.

This time it had to be the last. At least die trying.

When he opened his eyes and saw the chancellor, he groaned and close his eyes again. Another shame to live with, another failed deployment. Another cut in his pay, and more of the ridicule to shoulder for his family. He’d gone out and said he would bring even greater glory to their name, but all he piled upon House Tummelt in this very moment was failure after failure.

Surprisingly enough, the chancellor seemed to be in good spirits.

“Excellent work. Too bad about the prototype being lost in the ensuing skirmish, but otherwise it was a resounding success. Just a few more adjustments and we can all but disable the would-be king’s powers and he will be a sitting duck ready for the slaughter, much like his father was before him. Alas, as for you, Tummelt… I’m quite afraid that no matter the expectations being exceeded, this will still be counted as failure against you.”

Loqi wished he had died in the inferno, truly he did. The only thing he noticed as the chancellor strode off gleefully was… he wasn’t as sore as before. He didn’t feel as burnt as he did back then.

“The hell...”

There were a great many things he could have decided on, but right now he swore that if he ever got another chance at this, he would take that infernal would-be king out, come what may. The third time had to be the charm, or at least be the time that took him out in a blaze of glory instead of leaving him in the ashes of shame.

* * *

The third time… was no such thing. The entire stronghold effectively lay deadly silent as the ever familiar crackle of fire awoke him once more. His shoulder was definitely dislocated, and he held back screams as he dragged himself out of the Magitek – it had landed and was burning against one of the watchtowers in the base. It was a blessing in disguise, seeing that the fire reached the engine mere minutes later and the flames once more flared up like a hungry animal.

Four men. It just were four men. All of them his age – and yet they persisted so ruthlessly, it almost made him wonder what drove them. Not revenge. Revenge did not give strength like that, and the gods would not aid one setting out for a quest of vengeance. Yet there the prince had stood, eyes flaring in an unnatural colour, and sparks but announced the thunderous strike that then had wasted several hundred MTs and other pieces of Magitek in mere seconds. _Seconds._

Wherever Ulldor had landed, he had no idea. His dislocated shoulder hurt, and once more the familiar sting of burnt skin kept him conscious.

Perhaps there was less shame in losing against these four than he and the entire empire thought. He’d faced off, stood face to face, imperial machine to spell slinger not once, not twice, but _three_ times – and lived to tell the tale. There were plenty of people who hadn’t, despite much lesser odds stacked against them.

According to intel they were killing time before setting off to Altissia for real this time; the place where the empire would finally tighten the net they had delicately woven around the would-be king and the Oracle. The High Commander himself was almost desperately trying to catch his sister and her betrothed, though Loqi had little interest in familiar affairs between his higher-ups.

Loqi in fact did not know a single person that survived a fight against them, Ulldor’s brief encounter with them notwithstanding.

He grinned to himself as he limped over to the other burning Magitek. Much like himself, Caligo Ulldor had barely managed to drag himself out of it before the flames consumed the rest of the machine.

“It would seem we were outmatched. Hideously outmatched.”

“Darn these… Lucian brats...”

Loqi offered the other man a hand. “But we live. That cannot be said of many people who fought them. Good match, Ulldor, a very good match, even if we lost it and the base with it.”

Perhaps he wouldn’t be the only one being ridiculed now, although that had started to cease as people vanished back in the capital. Right now all he wanted was to return home and make certain the people he loved had not vanished – and to tell them he once more lived where others had not.

* * *

He had never expected a fourth time.

He was not even fighting the Lucian would-be king and his entourage. There was no Cor Leonis. He was not crashing a festival to apprehend a wanted man, he was not defending a base that was being infiltrated.

Loqi Tummelt was in Gralea, the last place he ever expected himself to be piloting a Magitek Armour. The streets were made for some daring events and parades like this, but right now there was no parade. There was no event. There weren’t even people who willingly viewed that – it was only him, he himself, surprisingly calm behind the control panel as the Daemons around him moved.

The Chancellor of Niflheim, Ardyn Izunia, moved amongst these as if there was nothing more natural. They ignored him – the damned Daemons ignored him! If his life weren’t balancing on a thin silken yarn right now that anyone could easily snap with but a hasty movement, he would have laughed. Laughed directly into the chancellor’s face, laughed into the visages of these Daemons, laughed as his luck finally ran out. He did no such thing and watched the man leave, watched as the Daemons that had stood perfectly still sprang back into action.

They knew he was in here. There was nothing he could do to flee the machine; the only way out was to quite literally shoot himself free.

The tank was half full and his ammunition mostly spent. Loqi Tummelt knew when he was losing a fight, and trying to win this one was completely and utterly pointless. Once more outmatched, and for once he wished it was the Lucian quartet.

Thus, he decided that now was the time to go down the way he had hoped he would after the first loss:

The blaze of glory.

Behind the control panel he cracked a grin and remembered all the time he spent training how to properly use this model in particular. The victories and the three bitter, stinging losses that burned like the scarred skin he covered with his armour over and over every time it happened. He didn’t know if there’d ever be a fifth time, but… if there ever was, perhaps it would be significantly less fire licking at his body. Perhaps it would just be a brawl, a test of strength. He knew better than hoping for a fifth time; he truly did not want to lose a fifth time. Three times were enough of shame upon his dead family’s names.

Still, he made the machine move. The Daemons near immediately focused on him, and he swore somewhere in the distance even the chancellor stopped moving to see which fool now had delusions of grandeur about taking down the Daemons that had haunted the capital for the better half of this year. But unlike whoever had attempted it before, Loqi was not going to go down without a fight.

“For the glory of the Empire!”

And perhaps for the lost honour of House Tummelt, all stacked on top of his Magitek and ready for the bonfire.

**Author's Note:**

> did you know that stealth sections are best enjoyed when you're not easily startled/get anxious when you get chased in a video game?  
> felt like i was gonna catch fire like loqi did at the end of that, smh


End file.
